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The Nasomah Village Massacre

Back in the day on January 28th, 1854, the Nasomah Village Massacre took place in Southern Oregon. Tensions between Native peoples and whites had been mounting in the area as incursions and settlements inflamed temperaments. Two years prior to the bloodshed, gold had been discovered at the mouth of the Coquille River leading to a rush of miners along its banks where many natives made their home. After isolated skirmishes, whites issued an ultimatum to the Chief of the Coquille people who then returned one in kind. Shortly thereafter, a vigilante group of forty miners known as the Randolph Minute Men surrounded the village of Nasomah. In the siege, homes were burned down to the ground as sixteen natives were killed. A Superintendent of Indian Affairs described the scene as “a massacre too inhuman to be readily believed.”

In the wake of the killings, the native peoples were removed from their villages along the Coquille River to the Siletz Reservation.

For Uprising, this is your truth professa’ saying today’s subversive day in history is dedicated to the late Howard Zinn who we remember as a man who taught us to never forget